


every time i get my face dry, you sing

by doomedtimelines



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Body Horror, Demonic Possession, F/F, Spiders, Trans Vriska Serket, brief misgendering, dont read if youre arachnophobic, its in one line but, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21553399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomedtimelines/pseuds/doomedtimelines
Summary: come on in little floating head at the doorit’s not meant to be a struggle uphillwho are you? who are you?who has come to fill this room?well come on, welcome inmount eerie - voice in headphones
Relationships: Feferi Peixes & Meenah Peixes, Feferi Peixes/Vriska Serket
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	every time i get my face dry, you sing

there is a demon in her house. she screams and howls and shakes the house’s very foundations.

feferi is patient. she paints sigils above her bed. keeps a pinch of amaranth on her at all times, just in case.

in one of feferi’s explorations, she comes across a door on the top floor. it creaks open under her touch.

cobwebs cover every inch of it. the walls, once blue, are covered with more slashes than paint. feferi tries to take a step in—

the door slams in her face. she takes the warning for what it is.

the demon drags her claws down the walls. she rages against her, calls her recreant, deceiver, defective. she is angry for no other purpose to be angry. it reminds her of a boy from her past, and the memory makes her a little sad.

a week in, feferi writes a note to the demon on a piece of notepaper. she leaves it pinned to the door of the cobweb-filled bedroom. My name is Feferi. It’s nice to M----E----ET you!

to give your name to a demon is a dangerous thing, but feferi has never been one for caution.

she finds the reply waiting for her, scratched into the living room ceiling. V-R-I-S-K-A.

-

vriska’s path of destruction declines after that. feferi no longer wakes to overturned tables and chairs smashed to pieces. she still gouges into the cobwebbed room, throwing pillows, ripping blankets.

when feferi pauses to study her reflection in the mirror, a flickering blue shape with too many eyes appears behind her.

feferi puts her hand to the mirror. she can almost feel the presence of an eight-fingered one on top of it.

-

feferi’s spell books start to fall open to pages that had almost faded from her memory. she starts setting out little things--some food here, some rum there, the occasional few drops of cow blood.

they must go somewhere, because it disappears by morning.

she doesn’t expect a thank you (this is a demon, not a fae), but it puts a smile to her face nevertheless.

-

vriska claws a series of sketches into the dining room table. it vaguely resembles a story, something about a girl and a wolf, alone on an island.

-

GG: is this about your demon problem?  
CC: I told you, it’s naut a problem! >38(  
CC: But yes, it’s aboat the demon.  
GG: :/  
GG: what happened?  
CC: She drew somefin on my table.  
GG: “drew”?  
CC: Well, scratched.  
CC: W)(at do you mako of it?  
\-- cuttlefishCuller [CC] sent gardenGnostic [GG] the file “Girlandwolf” --  
GG: ...  
GG: oh my GOD  
GG: is june fucking with me again?  
CC: W)(at? No!  
GG: really? because this looks like the story of my grandma!!!!!!  
GG: and she’s the only i’ve ever told it to!!!!!!!!!!  
CC: I swear t)(at I woke up to it on my table. June didn’t do t)(is.  
GG: ugh  
GG: well then how did your demon find out about my grandmother??  
CC: I don’t know.

-

every afternoon, feferi works in her garden.

she waters poppy, marigold, parsley. digs her hands into the dirt and tears up weeds by the root. today, she feels eyes watching her.

when she finishes with her work, wiping her hands off on her skirt, she straightens and turns to back the house. for a half of a second, there is a shape in the window. and then it is gone.

-

damara smokes like a chimney. it drives feferi up the wall, but she’s most powerful medium that still talks to her, seeing as  aradia’s still mad about sollux.

when the elder megido brushes past her, their shoulders smack into each other. a chill runs through feferi at the contact.

they settle in the living room. damara’s ice-cold fingers flutter behind her neck as she fastens a necklace around feferi’s neck. for protection, she’d been assured.

a small spider sits on a thread. she cannot shake the impression that its watching her.

they start to prepare the circle. feferi had shouted and argued against it, but damara wouldn’t budge.  "if it goes wrong, who stops demon?" she'd said, unmovable. "i do not want to be demon bitch forever."

in the present, damara’s skirt rides as she bends over to light the candles while feferi gets on her hands and knees as she chalks out the boundaries.

when they finish setting up the circle, it’s 11:41. damara sits cross-legged at the center of it, skirt straining around her scabbed knees.

damara mouths something, presumably in japanese. feferi watches her painted-red lips, when they stop moving, she counts the seconds. one. two. three. four. five. six. seven. eigh—

damara’s eyes snap open. for a split second, they are completely white. then, the iris and sclera turn a deep blue, the pupil remaining a white dot. the salty smell of the sea and blood fills the air. the spider on its web skitters deeper into the house.

damara—no, vriska. vriska stands up, unsteady. the word sealegs flashes across feferi’s mind.

vriska is bent over in an almost-ninety degree angle, clawing at her hair, gasping for breath. she unfolds herself, tilts her head back, lungs expanding and contracting underneath the skin.

“hi, vriska!”

vriska’s eyes fix on her. her pupils have multiplied.

Feferi?

“the one and only!”

vriska turns in a circle, frowning. her body leans to the left, as if that arm is weighing her down. feferi continues, “i was hoping we could talk. you know, outside of you messing up my floors. i think this will much more productive, if not permanent.”

vriska takes a lurching step towards feferi. and another. she hits the barrier with the next one, and she goes sprawling, catching herself on her elbows.

What?

You trapped me????????

YOU F8CKING TR8PPED ME????????

this is what she was afraid of. “vriska, no, listen to me. the medium—“

I TR8STED YOU.

vriska’s skin starts to turn blue. her nails turn to claws. oh shit. 

I TH88GHT YOU TR8STED M8.

“vriska, i do trust you, but the medium, she insisted—"

I. D8N’T. G8V8 8 SH8T.

vriska’s cavern of a mouth drops open impossibly wide. the windows start to shake.

WH8T S8ME W8RTHL8SS 88TCH T8LD YOU.

blue smoke runs out of vriska's eyes and mouth, pouring down her face and into the ground. she levitates a good eight inches off the ground as if pulled up by a string. a scream starts to emit out of nowhere. feferi clasps her hands over her ears. it does nothing to stop the shriek from penetrating her ears.

for an small eternity, feferi lies hunched over in fetal position as howls shred into her brain, unable to move.

there is a thud. vri—damara. damara hits the floor.

feferi runs to help.

damara ends up sitting on feferi’s couch, switching between sipping a glass of water and taking a drag from her cigarette, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

when she regains her voice, damara looks at feferi, a calm anger brewing behind her eyes. “no. never again.”

-

vriska rages and rages and rages. she breaks glass. throws knives. carves threats into walls.

feferi starts to have nightmares about being tangled in sticky threads until she’s choking on them. about blood dripping from her eyes, welling up painfully as a faceless man in green shakes his head in disappointment.

meenah shows up one thursday afternoon, bracelets tinkling as she fiddles with a bedazzled phone. “pack ya bags. you anchor live here no moray.”

-

meenah’s place is a wreck. feferi stretches out on the pull-out couch, staring up at the ceiling, searching for a message from in its minuscule crannies.

“you gon’ tell me what the fuck happened in that house, oar am i gonna have to beat it boatta you, guppy?”

meenah sprawls herself out on the chair, arms crossed across her chest, one eyebrow raised expectantly.

feferi sighs.

everything comes out. how she got vriska’s name, the room full of spiderwebs, the reflection, jade’s grandma, damara. meenah listens, nodding along, occasionally laughing at inappropriate times and grimacing in places where she shouldn’t grimace.

when feferi runs out of words, meenah sits down next to her. she puts her hand on her shoulder. feferi looks up at her.

“feferi peixes,” meenah says. “you in some deep-ass carp.”

-

“ya ever sink to look up the shipstory of that house?”

feferi frowns. meenah rolls her eyes. her fingers never stop tap-tap-tap-tapping. “of coarse ya didn’t.”

-

A MURDER-SUICIDE MATRICIDE: SERKET KILLS MOTHER, THEN HIMSELF.

feferi knows the signs of curses well enough to know it wasn’t suicide that took her demon.

she reads the article and shivers. how was it ever ruled a suicide?

-

the house is a wreck when she returns to it. her demon tore up the curtains, ripped up floorboards, flung doors off their hinges.

the house is eerily silent as feferi creeps through it. she hears every whine of the steps as she climbs the stairs.

there is one door still place. it creaks open under her touch.

it’s in even worse condition, somehow. webs reach from ceiling to floor. there is barely a hint of blue left on the walls.

as soon as feferi steps in, the temperature drops several degrees. like a magnet, her eyes are drawn to a spot on the floor.  this is where it happened.

a sudden, split-second impression of long dark hair, limp limbs, pooling blood.

the shadows start to move. no. not shadows. spiders. thousands and thousands of spiders, skittering down their webs.

they converge in the center of the room, forming into the shape of a woman. their legs form her hair. tens of thousands of eyes peer out. she grows and grows and grows until her head scrapes the ceiling. vriska’s mouth opens to an impossible angle, wider and wider and wider, countless wriggling mandibles composing the cavern of her maw.

LEAVE.

feferi stares down the demon, undisturbed by the show of power.

“vriska, i’m sorry.”

I. DON’T. WANT. YOU. HERE.

vriska’s many arms reach out for her. a furry leg brushes against feferi’s arm. she closes her eyes and reaches into her bag.

“i know what happened to you. it was cruel and unfair.”

feferi’s outstretched hand holds the articles detailing vriska and her mother’s deaths.

“this w—this is your room, isn’t it? and it’s where y—where she...” feferi trails off. she doesn’t have the words. “it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. i trust you to make the right decision.”

........

a pressure on her temples.

a series of brief snapshots. vriska chose the room on the top floor so she would know whenever her mother came home. magic corrupted her mother, made her drunk on power. her mother would scream and rage and take her anger out on her daughter. she cursed her daughter—with words and with spells. she bound vriska to this house, to her life, so she could never escape. and so when her mother threw open the door, frothing and shrieking, vriska was waiting. she slit her mother’s throat, knowing full well that by doing so, she was numbering her days.

the last thing vriska shows her is her death. a pain behind the eyes, and then an explosion in her head, splintering her skull open and spattering her brainmatter across the floor.

there is more to the story. to vriska’s story. but she’s not ready to talk about it, and so feferi will not push.

feferi opens her eyes. the spiders have dispersed, she thinks.

vriska stands almost nose-to-nose with her. feferi can’t look look directly at her, but her skin is tinted with blue. the left side of her face drips something dark down her side.

I tried to keep up your garden 8ut I’m not very good it at it.

her garden is the last thing on her mind.

“thank you very much, but you’re bound to this house?”

vriska’s head moves up and down once.

“then why don’t we destroy it?”

-

once their powers are combined, it’s surprisingly easy for a demon and a witch to take down a house.

-

if you pass by where the lot where the manor of serket once stood, it is said that you can hear the laughter of two girls.

**Author's Note:**

> i missed writing vriska


End file.
